I love hearing the bubbly song and watching the fluid dance of the tree swallows ... they fill the sky and farm with their exuberance and graceful wing dance. They are back! Early! A week now since their return.
Both the Eastern Blue Bird (Sialia sialis) and the Tree Swallow ( Tachycineta bicolor) are welcome guests in my garden bird houses... trouble is they tend to want the same houses ... but after a bit of feather flitting and scolding one another they do tend to settle down and tolerate each other's company. The Blue Birds having chosen their house in February are a bit put out by the challenge in late March... but usually later on in April of the daunting Tree Swallows. I have enough houses and their feeding habits do not conflict... the Tree Swallows dive and scoop, as a whale in the sky, thousands of flying - many biting - insects during the daylight hours, while the Blue Birds eye and dive from a perch to catch a worm or other buggy creature. There is plenty of food to go around ... but they both have another bird to fear - not yet here...